New Information on the Penn State Inquiry Committee

In today’s post, I’m going to report for the first time on information on the Penn State Inquiry Committee from an inside source (PS) who was familiar with the activities of the Inquiry Committee. PS agreed that the Inquiry Committee didn’t do their job, but pointed me to different reasons than those discussed in an earlier post on the matter.

PS’s information requires interpretation, but left me convinced that William Easterling, who was said by the Inquiry Committee report to have “recused” himself from the inquiry, had continued to exert influence on the inquiry and, indeed, it was his influence that resulted in the Inquiry Committee’s failure to contact targets of the Climategate team, including, most notably me.

When I was first contacted by PS, I asked him/her why the Inquiry Committee had neglected to contact me. The Inquiry Committee’s eventual report stated that, while they had received many complaints, the complaints were not directly reducible to allegations under Penn State academic misconduct policies. As both a target and someone intimately familiar with the material, I was an obvious resource. The failure of the Inquiry Committee to contact me was a startling omission. Why had this happened?

The reply:

You were not contacted for a reason. Recuse but not excuse!

I didn’t understand what he/she was saying at all, answering as follows:

I don’t understand your comment below. “recuse” applies to a judge, not to someone giving evidence.

PS replied:

Reread the Inquiry Report for context for “recuse”.

I didn’t figure out this clue at the time and responded impatiently:

I doubt that you would change my mind that your inquiry didn’t do its job. Not for the reasons that many readers presume – but because the inquiry purported to assume tasks of the investigation phase that should not be done in an inquiry stage, a point that I made in posts last year – see http://www.climateaudit.info/tag/penn-state. Procedurally, the process was totally botched. It’s too bad that you didn’t carry out the job that you were supposed to do, as it might well have somewhat cleared the air.

The final comment was an agreement that the Inquiry Committee hadn’t done its assigned job, but said that I had got to the right conclusion based on an incorrect analysis:

You have reached the right conclusion though based on incorrect assumptions.

In the wake of the Penn State scandal, I sent this correspondence to someone else who immediately solved the riddle. The word “recuse” occurs on one occasion in the Inquiry Committee report:

At this meeting [Nov 24, 2009], all were informed of the situation and of the decision to respond to the matter with an inquiry under RA-10. Dr. Pell then discussed the responsibilities that each individual would be expected to have according to policy. At this time, Dean Easterling recused himself from the inquiry for personal reasons.

While Easterling’s reasons were not stated in the report, the existence of some sort of conflict is evidenced by the mere fact that Easterling felt obliged to declare that he “recused” himself. In the subsequent Investigation Committee report in June 2010 (as a reader observes), Easterling’s supposed “recusal” is specifically attributed to a “conflict of interest” (though the Investigation Committee having noted Easterling’s conflict of interest, then inconsistently relied on Easterling to provide them with the names of scientists critical of Mann’s work, with Easterling apparently omitting the most obvious names.)

“Recuse but not excuse”.

My interpretation of this oracle is that, despite a conflict that obliged Easterling to declare that he had “recused” himself, Easterling, in fact, continue to influence the proceedings and was responsible, directly or indirectly, for the Inquiry Committee’s decision not to contact critics, including, most obviously, me. Instead, they used Gerry North and Donald Kennedy as experts on the emails, even though North admitted that he had not read the emails out of “professional courtesy”.

That the Penn State Inquiry Committee had not done its prescribed job was evident to me as soon as I read the report – for the reasons that I reported at the time. However, PS pointed to a reason that I had not contemplated: that despite his supposed “recusal”, Easterling continued to exert influence on the Inquiry Committee, including its decision not to contact critics.

Whether my specific interpretation of the events surrounding the Inquiry Committee is now correct, my conclusion that the Inquiry Committee had not done its assigned job was confirmed:

You have reached the right conclusion

As I had noted at the time, the procedural advice given to the Inquiry Committee seemed highly questionable. Wendell Courtney, counsel to the Inquiry Committee, has, of course, become prominent in the wake of his role in the Penn State scandal.

46 Comments

Steve, in light of the sexual nature of the current Penn State scandal, perhaps the pseudonym is somewhat inappropriate.
You never know who might misuse a common cultural reference for something else.
Steve: yup. changed.

Everyone on the committee had a responsibility. Blaming someone for exercising inappropriate influence doesn’t relieve those on the committee from the responsibility to avoid being so influenced.

I realize that “office politics” play an enormous role. [Clearly no one at Penn State was willing to intrude on Paterno’s turf for a lot of ‘understandable’ reasons.] But the responsibility can’t be excused because someone else failed to recuse.

I remember during the Watergate hearings someone being asked
“Who ordered the coverup”
and the answer was
“No one ordered us not to cover up”.

One typically only recuse’s ones self if you have a conflict of interest in the possible outcomes. This could be something trivial, having lobbied for a junior colleagues tenure or something financial, such as a shared grant.

Hi Steve. With just the selected notes you’ve posted for interpretation (there must be more which you’ve chosen not to share?), ‘PS’ is coming across as more than a little gamey. Why would a source’s info require interpretation? Red flag? BTW, it can hardly be called an ‘inquiry’ when the inquirers are thus said to be excused from broadly inquiring due to a strong but ‘invisible’ hand.

A clarification for causal readers, the “Inquiry Committee” was the first investigation [sort of] that released it’s finding in Feb, 2010. Of the four charges to be reviewed the committee did find there was….

“a question of accepted faculity conduct surrounding scientific discourse and thus merits a review by a committee of faculty scientists.”

The Inquiry team kicked the can down the road to the “Penn Investigatory Committee” to apply the final coat of whitewash, released on July 2, 2010. I was present at both of the Lindzen-North debates in Jan, 2010 at the Houston Petroleum Club and at Rice University where Dr North was emphatic that he had not read ANY of the ClimateGate emails as they were stolen property and that would be “unethical”. As a recognized expert on ethics, per his CV, Dr North must be trusted on his good faith participation in the Penn team games. As the statue of limitations is still open on these matters, it will be interesting to see if the spotlight in the locker room shower casts any light on any other Penn problems.

Steve: the Inquiry Committee did NOT simply “kick the can” down the road. It dismissed the major issues without an investigation by a properly constituted investigation committee.

Fred,
I have to respectfully disagree. “Yes Minister” was, indeed, an excellent and prescient parody waiting to happen, in the current context, but it lacked one vital ingredient.
Silliness!
To get the full flavour of what “silliness” when allied with “parody” can come up with then you have to move into BBC Radio, a decade earlier.
“The Men from the Ministry” starring Murdoch and Guyler got it spot on!

Their potty exploits remain (in the inimitable words of the BBC announcer) “a tribute to the men of our Government service, those men who are sometimes compared to tea bags: they always stick together when they get into hot water”

So, let’s see if I understand this. In Penn State nomenclature, to “recuse” oneself means to formally withdraw, for reasons of otherwise inappropriate conflict, from the official role of the inquiry panel.

In contrast, to “excuse” oneself from that panel means to not only withdraw from the panel, but also to refrain from advising, or influencing the deliberations and conclusions of, the official panel members.

As William Easterling recused himself, but didn’t excuse himself, he was off the official panel but able to act behind the scenes advising and influencing the panel members.

So this is good: we now know that conflict of interest has meaning only under an official aegis. When one’s presence is unofficial, there is no conflict of interest even when there is a conflict of interest. Clearly, this is a lovely facilitating advance in the philosophy of professional ethics.

William Easterling seems to have a sense of circummentation that might grace science with ethics of Paul de Man. Paul de Man was a highly honored academic import who embraced the postmodern deconstruction of ethics into relativist amnesia so as to exculpate his own collaborationist past. Likewise, Prof. Easterling has relativized “recuse” to allow unofficial back-door machinations, bringing ethical amnesia to the strict meaning of conflict of interest.

I didn’t know William Easterling, so I looked up his website. He actually looks a little like Jerry North, which is somehow appropriate given their joint adherence to the “wing-it” motif for important inquiries.

According to his CV, WE was a Coordinating Lead author in the WGII sections of the FAR and the TAR. He was also a Convening Lead author in the same assessment reports. He publishes heavily about the impact of climate on food, agriculture, and forests. He models the impact of future climate on food and agriculture and has testified on these topics, and so the strength of his research is heavily dependent on the validity of climate models. One would suppose he is therefore equally heavily committed to defending the efficacy of the same climate models, and the CO2-driven climate change they portend, on which his research so thoroughly depends.

A search of Web of Science yielded no publications of William Easterling with Michael Mann.

In the Investigation COmmittee report, Easterling also turns up. He is interviewed by the Investigation COmmittee as Dean. They asked him how long he had known Mann, but not why he had recused himself from the Inquiry Committee:

The Investigatory Committee had a number of prepared questions, starting with a request to learn how Dr. Easterling knew Dr. Mann. Dr. Easterling reported that he had known Dr. Mann for about six or seven years prior to his appointment at Penn State in 2008.

Later they asked the conflicted Easterling for names of scientists who they could interview:

The Investigatory Committee then questioned Dr. Easterling about various scientists in the field of climate science who might be interviewed by the Investigatory Committee regarding their views of what constitutes accepted and ethical practice with regard to the conduct of research in the field. The Investigatory Committee wanted a choice of scientists who had disagreed with Dr. Mann’s findings as well as others who had agreed but who had not collaborated with Dr. Mann or his collaborators.

I presume that, despite my familiarity with the material and my having published several articles on the topic, Easterling, with his admitted conflict, again failed to list me and, as a result, the Investigation Committee did not contact me, not even to verify specific statements relating to me.

As previously noted, the critical manouevre was the use of the Inquiry Committee to decide not to investigate key Climategate issue through a properly constitued investiation committeee.

It’s interesting to note on page 10 of the Report, that, “The Investigatory Committee then questioned Dr. Easterling about various scientists in the field of climate science who might be interviewed by the Investigatory Committee regarding their views of what constitutes accepted and ethical practice with regard to the conduct of research in the field. The Investigatory Committee wanted a choice of scientists who had disagreed with Dr. Mann’s findings as well as others who had agreed but who had not collaborated with Dr. Mann or his collaborators.” This was during his 12 April 2010 interview.

The very next paragraph finishes the interview with Dr. Easterling making himself available to the committee. I.e., none of the names offered by Dr. Easterling are mentioned, there nor anywhere else, although elsewhere he is quoted exactly.

Then, on page 15, the Committee reported, “Dean Easterling … agreed to suggest names of eminent scientists who might agree to be interviewed by the Investigatory Committee in its efforts to establish the range of “accepted practices within the academic community for proposing, conducting, or reporting research or other scholarly activities. (my bold)”

This latter construction is not at all like the earlier request for interviewees, who were to include, “… a choice of scientists who had disagreed with Dr. Mann’s findings as well as others…”

From their list of interviewees, the Committee never interviewed anyone who disagreed with Dr. Mann’s findings. Richard Lindzen would not constitute such a scientist because his work is entirely separate from Michael Mann’s.

It’s also interesting to note that in their Summary of Michael Mann’s 12 January 2010 interview, the Committee reported that, “he had never falsified any data, nor had he had ever manipulated data to serve a given predetermined outcome (my bold)”

and that, “he never engaged in activities or behaviors that were inconsistent with accepted academic practices.”

Each of these statements seems to be contradicted by the hiding of adverse statistics as noted in his own ‘back to 1400 CENSORED’ directory, presuming I properly understand Steve M.’s description.

Just my own opinion here but I also can’t imagine that Dr. Mann was unaware of the biasing effect of his short centering PCA method. Proceeding to publication regardless, too, would violate accepted academic practice, big time.

Along those lines, I still think the Mannkovitch CO2 Bodge is the most damning evidence. Even if it was not done in order to “manipulate data to serve a given predetermined outcome”, he should have at least reported that a) he had tried different “fixes” and b) the 1000-1850 trend was heavily dependent on a chosen “fix”.

Easterling did not even have to worry about missing S.Mc off the list. The question was framed so S.Mc was never going to be considered part of the list because they could define ‘Scientist’ anyway they wanted.

What’s fascinating to me here is that Penn State did not need to ask Easterling to list scientists critical of Mann’s work. Any administrative assistant (nee “secretary”) could have found such persons with just five minutes worth of Googling. Or, if they have to ask some scientist, rather than an admin, for such a list of names, it is a no-brainer to ask a scientist NOT at Penn State to provide a list.

Steve has interpreted the Oracle PS correctly. On “recuse” there is no ambiguity. The question is “excuse”, and in this respect my dictionary (Shorter Oxford) provides several meanings, of which the first three are:
—–
[1] Seek to clear (a person) wholly or partially from blame without denying or justifying the action concerned; try to extenuate (an acknowledged fault). Formerly also, clear of blame by alleging that.

[3] Obtain exemption for (a person); give reasons for the exemption of (a person) from a duty or obligation.
—–
and several other senses relating to condone, exculpate, exempt, free from blame, which I will omit.

In only one sense, does it approach “recuse”, as “Decline (a deed, to do) with apologies”.

Ah, the TEAMs wonderful art of misdirection, or as SM likes to put it, you have to keep your eye on the pea under the thimble.

It was indeed artful, as the printed record shows a flawless process, as 99.99% of us can have no idea where the misdirection occurred. It did not fool the inside source though, and I applaud him/her for at least tipping off SM that his conclusion was correct.

Deep Throat “PS” seems more than a little coy in its input. One wonders about motivation….

As for Easterling’s “sua sponte” recusal, it is interesting to note what a US Department of Justice Operating Policies and Procedures Memorandum says about the obligations of a judge:

“This obligation to recuse is not limited to those instances where a party makes a motion; rather it places a burden on a judge to sua sponte identify those circumstances where recusal may
be appropriate. Liteky v. U.S., 510 U.S. 540, 548 (1994). Title 28 United States Code § 4551
codified this doctrine and states in pertinent part:
§ 455. Disqualifications of justice, judge or magistrate.
(a) Any justice, judge or magistrate judge of the United States2
shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality
might reasonably be questioned.
(b) He shall also disqualify himself in the following circumstances:
(1) Where he has a personal bias or prejudice concerning a
party, or personal knowledge of disputed evidentiary facts
concerning the proceeding;…”

If any of the above factors were operative in the Easterling case, it was completely inappropriate for the Investigation Committee.

I could be mistaken but a judge can recuse himself but in some cases the parties in the matter can waive the disqualification and have the judge preside anyway. Thus “PS” s comment that Easterling recused himself, not “ex”cused becomes relevant. Someone(s) else on the panel may have requested or let him participate anyway after the “formal” recuse was recorded. The series of blunders by Penn State suggests more cover ups to the sham.

Interesting that Penn State seems to be attempting to claim sovereign immunity with the potential lawsuits, but previous declarations of exemption from FOI (due to not being public) may come back to haunt them.

“Pennsylvania State University, after years of skirting public-school rules, may claim protection from liability under commonwealth statutes that shield government entities, if it faces lawsuits related to a child-sex scandal.”

“While Penn State is the commonwealth’s flagship state- supported school, it has successfully asserted claims to be exempt from freedom-of-information laws that apply to most public institutions including many of its competitors, such as Ohio State University and the University of Texas.”

There was a lengthy discussion of Penn State’s exemption from FOI last night on Anderson Cooper (CNN). Cooper and his contributors were almost apoplectic at Penn State’s stonewalling of requests for information, one contributor calling the institution “arrogant”, “imperious”.

Your quote from the inquiry report (“At this time, Dean Easterling recused himself from the inquiry for personal reasons”) is from the first version of the report, Feb 2010. In the final report, June 2010, the wording of the recuse statement is different:

Dean Easterling recused himself from the inquiry due to a conflict of interest.

I think this provides the solution for the semantic puzzle Pat Frank has been struggling with. In February Easterling recused himself for personal reasons – including his considerable personal interest in wanting to influence proceedings behind the scenes, without accountability, not least in preventing all contact of the committee with McIntyre. In June his conflict of interest, which was real, could be stated as the reason for the recusal and the fact that this had been interpreted quite differently from normal need not burden readers of the final report.

Those who see this use of language as highly deceptive have not mastered “the postmodern deconstruction of ethics into relativist amnesia” Pat mentions and I strongly urge them to do so.

Because it said “conflict of interest” does not necessarily mean that was the reason. Recusal in many, maybe almost all, cases is due to conflict of interest. Therefore, the latter phrase is almost automatically understood when recusal is invoked. Whoever typed that portion of the report might easily have assumed that “recusal” meant conflict of interest and inserted that without referencing the earlier “personal reasons” assertion.

It was the key characteristic of all of them. I was sure this wasn’t an accident on Wednesday 10th February 2010 (para 5). I assumed at that point this would be true of all the subsequent inquiries and that this would render them worthless. Note that the “poor Phil” meme had been released into the world three days before, courtesy of Neil Wallis and Richard Girling in the Sunday Times. It was clear from everything that deception and distraction were the watchwords.

McI — “While Easterling’s reasons were not stated in the report, the existence of some sort of conflict is evidenced by the mere fact that Easterling felt obliged to declare that he “recused” himself.”

Ummm….

“At this time, Dean Easterling recused himself from the inquiry for personal reasons.”

Why are ‘personal reasons’ a conflict? Maybe he was going through a divorse, or a child of his was ill? What business is that of anyone’s? It’s enough to state that there were personal reasons.
Steve: I agree that the conclusion does not follow from the sentence in the Inquiry Committee report. I had reached this conclusion with my interpretation of the additional interpretation from my source and knowing that Easterling was co-PI with Mann on a USAID funded project – this information should have been adduced in drawing this conclusion. As a CA reader subsequently pointed out, the Investigation Committee report stated that Easterling had withdrawn due to “conflict of interest”. The Inquiry Report’s statement on this point was therefore somewhat misleading, as it left a reader such as yourself unclear on the point. Nonetheless, your point about the sentence as written is valid and I’ll amend so that your point is reflected.

Honestly, I don’t understand the obsession with this. The PSU inquiry was destined, right from the beginning, to do exactly what it did. Academic bureaucracies are among the most feckless things on earth. Now, if Mann’s star were to fall and his ability to rake in the money were compromised, you can be sure that an investigative committee would go where none dared go before. But until that time comes he’ll sit pretty. A better use of time would be to stay focused on exposing the wobbly science behind AGW, which this blog does remarkably well.

[…] Further as I discuss in The Liberal War on Transparency, I have documents in which a principal in that effort indicates it was orchestrated from behind the scenes to avoid certain people being asked certain things, presumably because that would make the desired outcome impossible. See also Steve McIntyre, “New Information on the Penn State Inquiry Committee”. […]